investments

Conclusion: to decide on how to invest, first you must ask “for what?”

Low risk, high return, please

I often get questions about what to invest in. What’s missing is “why?”, “for what?” and “at what potential cost?”. People want as high returns as possible, and preferably with high liquidity (the option to cash in at any point) and low risk of loss.

That’s not how investing works. Investing means taking risk and betting on an uncertain future. Anything that’s obvious and certain has already been bid up to a price promising zero returns. Actually these days, many investments that aren’t even perfectly certain promise negative returns — government bonds for example.

If you have nest egg of a year’s worth of income that you want to invest, you must first decide on at least two things:

What you want to get out of the investment — becoming rich, getting a decent return to live off, or preserving your capital

What you’re willing to risk for having a shot at that — risk having to start over from zero, risk getting a sub-par or zero return

It’s a mix of exposure to growth, inflation, deflation, monetary madness continuation, monetary re-set, debt management, terrorism and personal development. I think I’ve covered most outcomes, but I definitely have much more to gain from a strong economy than a weak. Sure, I would still welcome a stock market melt down, but I’m not so sure I would be able to profit that much from it since I would have too little liquid assets to put to use.

I’m not really geared for a stronger economy either — well, I’m not geared at all — but for me it’s much more important to preserve my capital (with some upside) than to multiply it. I have almost nothing to gain from doubling my net worth, whereas halving it or worse would put me at risk of not being and feeling rich anymore.

What’s your investment equation?

Who are you? What do you want? Why do you want it? What are you willing to risk to get it?

What are you not willing to risk?

Do you want to live comfortably? Do you want to be rich (and dont care if you become poor, as long as you’re not average)? Do you just want to fit in, actually be average? Is your focus on yourself and your family (absolute level) or on comparing and competing (relative riches), or on something else altogether (e.g., being admired for your investment performance)

Whether you should buy physical gold, government bonds, P2P lending like Lendify, public or private equity, gamble on derivatives with or without leverage, or focus on your own education, skills and business is a question of what the returns are for, when, and with what certainty. There is no such thing as an optimal investment or optimal investment strategy.

I can say this much though, most people should be invested in equites for the long run, while maintaining more or less liquid reserves (depending on where we are in the stock market cycle) in uncorrelated assets (such as commodities, currencies or precious metals), in order to take advantage of the quite regular large drawbacks that occur on the stock market.

Please note that right now (April 11, 2018) seems to be a very special period for both stocks and fixed income instruments like government bonds. Plainly stated: they are extremely expensive and due for severe pullbacks. That’s especially true for story stocks like Tesla (I’ll write about that one pretty soon) that is all but sure to fall by at least three quarters unless Musk pulls off something truly remarkable. Hope is not a strategy though. Remember that.

Now, today’s homework is to write down what you own and why.

Your second homework is to start taking responsibility for your future, by taking regular walks while listening to my podcast Future Skills. Start with the conversation with hedge fund billionaire Martin Sandquist (episode 3) or this one (episode 6) with futurologist and philosopher Alexander Bard.

Topic: my view of a few macro indicators as well as my personal investments

Summary: growth, inflation and bond yields going lower; USD, stocks, housing going up;bitcoin, gold and uranium going up longer term, but first sideways and possibly down in a bottoming formation; stocks: undecided and binary; I’m 100% long stocks but only very specific companies, and no large caps or story stocks.

Lesson: make your own macro and micro run through, and make sure it holds water. Mine is a bit leaky…

I think I, however, might be too lazy and lenient with my holdings. Only every now and then, I summarize my views of the world, as well as tally my holdings to see if they make at least a quantum of sense.

I see no reason to monitor either macro or micro developments in detail. I do want them to be coherent and mostly compatible though. In short, this is my view of the general economy:

Right now I’m counting on continued economic weakness in most of the world, with Sweden as one notable exception. I’m also expecting continued monetary stimulus, including not least in Sweden with a deeply negative policy rate despite the booming Swedish economy*. Consequently I’m long risk assets, including private and public equity. Those holdings are complemented with more insurance like holdings in gold and private loans.

*The Swedish economy is heavily dependent on exports, not least to Asia, which means that serious weakness in the global economy will have adverse effects on Sweden. In addition, the Swedish stock index usually tracks the US indices quite closely, in particular when stocks are going down. Hence, my sanguine view of Sweden is both relative and temporary.

An overview of macro indicators

Growth: going down, weakening after the Trump head fake. His policies are all working for a stronger USD and weaker economy, not the opposite. After a long cycle, most low hanging fruit has been plucked in terms of employment and capital utilization. The cycle is not dead as some claim. More likely, the cycle will come back with a vengeance after this long experiment with ultra-low interest rates.

Inflation: flat to down after the Trump reflation hype. Inflation expectations were mostly based on just that: expectations, and not real factors. Commodities, e.g., are weakening, and employment and wages are not showing signs of strengthening ahead – rather the opposite, especially if the economy weakens, as I think it will.

USD: going up after the recent weakness (the weakness was based on unwarranted growth hopes in Europe etc). Other central banks will be more dovish again, and the US economy is still the least dirty shirt. Yellen seems set on “normalizing” the policy rate as quickly as possibly, quite the opposite of what the ECB and BOJ are doing. She will keep raising rates until the stock market breaks, at which point she’ll save the day by rapidly cutting rates, thus completing the full retard cycle. Before that though, increasing interest rate differential and a relatively strong economy vs. Europe will push the dollar higher.

Bond yields: undecided, sideways with a downward bias. All economies are weak, the economic cycle is peaking (i.e., soon turning downward), weak growth, weak inflation. Bond yields always fall in recessions, even if they are already ridiculously low. They are a safe haven, the only one for investors shunning gold.

Bitcoin: due for a big correction downward, but I would still bet on it long term; looking to buy massively at 100-1000 (!)… or gradually wherever it may otherwise trade the coming year (even if that means higher prices than today). I hold very little in bitcoins today.

Stocks: binary, expensive, forming a peak, but there are islands of value in forgotten non-ETF stocks. Phase transition blow off upward as likely as a normal 10-20% correction downward (that could be the start of the real downturn of 50-60% with ETFs liquidating ETFs, margin calls on leveraged longs, euphoria turning to despair, falling margins and profits etc.). Beware of getting caught holding illiquid small caps if you can’t afford to hold them for years to come. I’m not entirely comfortable with my portfolio of publicly listed small caps.

Gold: going sideways; trying to bottom technically, cheap vs stocks, expensive vs oil, probably need a catalyst to move significantly. In addition, commodities are weak in general and not getting any help from growth or inflation.

Real estate (housing): going up. It seems Swedish (Stockholm) apartment prices just can’t go down (famous last words). When I bought my first apartment in February 1997 at 14 kSEK/sq meter, I was positive I was the last fool in (“but could afford it”). Twenty years later, at least one apartment in my neighborhood recently sold for 155 kSEK/sq meter. That’s a 1000% gain in 20 years. My best guess, however,is that my apt is worth around 100 kSEK/sqm. The Swedish central bank is even more deranged than most other CBs, and the Stockholm economy is thriving with large numbers of qualified people constantly moving to the city, including boomers selling their houses and moving back into the city centre, while simultaneously buying apartments there for their kids.

Oil: flat to down, as other energy sources gain more and more traction, and US shale technology improves, while countries in the Middle East become increasingly desperate to balance their budgets. The price is already low so look out for temporary bounces, but the overall price direction will be down, I think.

Volatility: VIX going up. It could take a long time, but there is hell to pay sooner or later for anybody shorting the VIX. I’m not touching it either way though.

My holdings

Precious metals, Lemuria: A Canadian royalty streaming company exposed to gold, silver and platinum. This is my insurance policy against deep financial turmoil.

I hold rights to the physical product directly from the mines. The problem is that the company still hasn’t invested most of the money. With a little luck precious metals will come down 10-20% over the coming 12-24 months in a final bottoming formation, enabling my company to put its capital to use. There is currently a 2x difference in valuations between small private companies and larger publicly listed companies in this sector. We aim for reaching critical mass for a listing within 2-5 years, providing me with x times leverage on the gold price and an additional 2x leverage on private vs. public valuation multiples.

Sweden, Polskenet: A Swedish investment company buying small services and manufacturing family owned businesses in the northern parts of Sweden. The investments will be made over the course of the coming 3-4 years, hopefully during a market and economic downturn, but present conditions are fine too.

This is my retirement fund; whatever happens to Sweden over the coming 10 years will be my fate as well – albeit with a decent leverage to the upside in terms of purchase private small company valuations vs. future publicly listed mid cap valuations.

Growth, Torped: A manufacturing start-up, designing, producing and marketing jet powered surfboards, targeting and expanding the PWC/MSB market. This is my main exposure to a real growth company. The aim is to start serial volume production next year and then expand from there. Given current sales numbers, consumer demand, the quality of competing products etc. this looks like a home run — as long as the economy or this particular (luxury niche) market doesn’t crash completely.

Human resources, Agerus: A private Swedish human resources software company. Software/app for measuring and managing the human capital in terms of knowledge, competence, motivation, authorization etc. This is actually my currently largest exposure (through both debt and equity). It’s kind of a slow burner but there are some promising signs of explosive growth ahead, as well as possibly a structural deal and liquidity event. The important thing is getting the solutions out to personnel intensive companies and make a difference.

Trading, Anna: I have recently outsourced a small part of my listed portfolio to my girlfriend. Trading is too time consuming, and I’m neither good, nor interested in the activity. She seems to be happy swinging in bitcoin, large and small caps, IPOs, commodities (cacao, e.g.) etc. for a 10% fee.

Finepart (micro cap, manufacturing company, specialised precision tools, if/when they manage to get their machine delivered to SKF it has a real chance to double to previous highs of 10-12 SEK; currently 5.75)

NetGamingEurope (gaming affiliate, operating thousands of SEO pages linking to online casinos; as long as Google doesn’t mess with the SEO algorithms NGE should be able to produce very good results in relation to the current market cap. The upside is currently 50-100% with the stock at 9.75 [it bottomed, I hope, earlier today at 8.35])

Opus (vehicle inspection, testing and certification company; secular growth, consolidator as well as acquisition target. Reasonably valued at its current price of 7.40 [P/S 1.2 and P/B 2.1] but should be a steady grower for the long term). Should triple in five years but I’ll probably get out at 10 if it gets there before a general stock market downturn.

Stockwik (recently re-aligned investment company just coming out of a period with a weak balance sheet, losses and poor operations. Profits from future acquisitions should form the basis for growth that in turn enables more acquisitions). It could be going nowhere…, or 5-7x in 5-7 years. It’s trading at 0.037 SEK today, but I’m looking for 0.25 SEK in the next upturn.

Studsvik (nuclear consultancy benefiting from increased nuclear power build out; and possibly also from a quick de-nuclearization. My main reason for holding Studsvik, however, is the potential for structural deals, such as real estate divestments etc). Will most likely trend sideways with a slight negative bias until and if it manages to present some major positive development. I think it’s reasonable to hope for 25-50% upside (from today’s 58.50) but also easily a 25% downside.

Simris Alg (16.90 SEK, a negligible holding for tax reasons and monitoring; a maker of omega-3 from algae [currently sub-scale and too expensive for consumers])

ETFs, commodities

URA Uranium ETF (currently 12.31 USD. An inventory overhang has pressured the uranium price the last half decennium or so. Around now, however [during 2018], there are reasons to believe we could see signs of underinvesting and future uranium supply deficit. When/if a supply deficit occurs it takes many years to get new uranium mines operational, thus creating a perfect storm for higher prices. Low oil prices and cheaper solar are two major threats, as well as increased opposition toward nuclear. Technically, I identify a triple bottom over the most recent 18 months, with the low point at 11.31 USD and a recent bottom at 11.68 (that I don’t want tested).

GDX Senior gold miners ETF (currently 21.98 USD). Gold miners have had to streamline operations (cutting costs) during the 5-6 year long downturn, thus providing lower break even prices and good operational leverage. When the gold price turns significantly upward, gold miners usually move 2x vs. the gold price. As long as it stays above 21 USD and the gold price above 1215 USD/oz (currently 1246) I feel pretty confident.

My holding in GDX is almost insignificant compared to my exposure to Lemuria, even when taking into account the leverage provided by miners vs. the metal. However I want a real time exposure to gold, and not least some exposure at all, while I’m waiting for Lemuria to put my capital to use.

Loans: I have no debts or mortgages myself. Instead I’ve lent out money to friends and acquaintances: Björn, Patricia, Jonas, Thomas, Robert… I have a few million (at 10% rate) coming due a week from now, but most of my loan exposure is longer term.

Private and public pension: Blackrock gold, Brummer 2xL (fund of hedgefunds), state pension. Enough to live off of quite comfortably, if all else fail

Apartment: A mortgage free, large apartment (200+ m^2 = 2250 ft^2, in the very central parts of Stockholm city — coincidentally it’s more or less the exact same size as the hotel room I lived in when I was in Las Vegas)

Conclusion

All in all my portfolio is mainly based on diversification, since I feel I know too little and the market situation is too unusual.

I feel incredibly uncertain these days: everything is expensive, investors seem to embrace all kinds of risk, and central bankers are growing ever more retarded. A crash seems as likely as a blow off top. Because of that scenario, I have spread my investments over several different asset classes, while avoiding debt altogether. If anything, the latter is at least different from most people. I probably should complement my portfolio with out of the money crash put options, which is how we often did it at Futuris (The Hedge Fund Of The Decade), but my current portfolio type doesn’t allow derivatives.

Gold, nuclear energy, small caps, private companies, start-ups, loans, living quarters… How are you exposed, and what are your reasons?

Executive summary: AI is coming. You’d better think about your career and investment opportunities in AI and robotics. And the importance of Deep Work to keep up.

Hint: Google, FB, Amazon

Length: 2128 words

The robot overlords are drawing closer

Finally a machine beat a decent player at the ancient eastern game of Go. With decent I don’t mean an Asian grand master, but at least a three time European champion.

Artificial Intelligence keeps progressing, no matter whether you know about (or like it) or not.

First an AI application is typically seen as a curiosity. Then it becomes a tool you need to learn how to use. And eventually it will develop to the point where it could take your job.

IBM’s Watson easily beat the world’s best Jeopardy masters several years ago. Since then it has become the world’s foremost oncology expert.

Currently Watson is on its way to start replacing swathes of paralegals at law firms as well as finding new oil reserves. A few years down the road, anyone with a cellphone (or AugReal contact lens) will be able to tap into Watson-like powers for any kind of search or research.

Over the coming 20 years, most jobs will be affected by the progress in robotics and AI. Hence, even if you are aiming for future-proof industries (The 5 Singularity Enablers or The Big 5 human issues, or, most likely, a combination*), you’ll nevertheless need to learn to work with robots and artificial agents, or risk replacement.

If you’re flipping burgers, sewing garments, assembling consumer electronics, building cars or houses, reading court cases, writing (sports) news, trading stocks or driving any type of vehicles for a living, you’ll soon be out of work (except if you can leverage the new technology in some creative way).

Deep Work makes you change-resistant

To stay one step ahead of the AIs; to be a fast learner as well as able to tap into your most creative powers, one indispensable skill for the future will be the ability to perform deep, focused thinking and problem solving, i.e., Deep Work, in the words of Cal Newport.

Rather than allowing various notifications from e-mail, Twitter, Facebook. Instagram etc. to force your days into shallow, responsive, always on-line type of activities, you should practice going off-line and “deep” for longer stretches of time (30-90 minutes) as often as you can.

Buy it, it may be your best investment ever

Deep work restructures your brain, making it easier going forward to enter a state of flow and focus, and thus becoming more and more effective, and increasingly able to perform above AI-level, not to mention quickly learn new skills, including how to use new (AI) tools.

Meditation helps too, but that’s just too weird and Eastern for most – at least if we’re talking about 30-minute long sessions or more. I myself had much rather turn everything off for 90 minutes and solve an intellectual problem at the top of my ability (writing a blog post, a new book, or working if I had a job).

If you can’t beat the robots, join them

This Tuesday I (and my dog Ronja) talked in front of 400+ engineering students at Sweden’s top technological university, Chalmers. I specifically remember three interesting questions.

What made your fund so successful?

What advice would you have given yourself as a student today?

What would you have studied today?

Answers to important questions are superpositions of the entire spectrum of answers

What’s particularly intriguing about the first question is that my number one success factor was also the number one negative at the same time:

Being unbiased and fundamental

It worked extremely well over the several bull and bear waves during my career (1994-2015). On the other hand, being unbiased and fundamental also made it all but impossible to ride the bull waves (“bubbles”) long enough – in particular the last one (the quantitative easing bubble that finally seems to be bursting).

I often find that the most important questions are answered in the same “how long is a piece of string” fashion. Learn to recognize and acknowledge those situations, rather than dislike them. They provide you with a much wider range of choices than clear-cut 1 or 0 situations.

Nr 2 is also easy: Direct your studies and career toward something that interests you, that you like, that gives you the “unfair advantage” of having your favorite hobby as your work.

No matter how successful (or not) you get, at least you had fun on the way. And, given the unfair advantage, you’ll probably change the world in some positive way and become rich/famous/of stature, no matter if you want to or not.

Build authority through usefulness (for you and others), not (empty and meaningsless) celebrity or wealth

I however began by saying that I myself would never have listened to such advice, and that I didn’t expect anybody to do it today either. At 22 I was too focused on making money, or at least on getting a job, any job. In my eagerness to become independent I as quickly as possible put myself into wage slavery and the consumption rat race.

In my defense, I hardly understood the concept of starting a business. I had a very static view of the world and kind of thought all companies already existed.

Hmmm, that didn’t make me look any better did it?

Resistance is futile

The third question could have been answered in a myriad more or less complicated ways. To keep it simple and clear, I boiled it down to one single word: Robotics.

Going east, to Japan, China or South Korea, is preferable for anybody going into robotics. However, it probably isn’t necessary – and France, Germany, The U.S. and Sweden also hold their own within robotics. It’s even possible Google and other U.S. companies are on their way to overtaking the Asians.

Except for North Korea of course. Their mighty leader has already built a super strong general AI that will rain fire over the western subhuman devils. Just recently, e.g., Kim Jong Un’s AI crafted the most efficient and gloriously superior hydrogen fusion bomb that history will ever see.

I wonder if he has any idea how funny he is

Why robotics?

Because everything comes together there. And it’s the most future-proof industry there is.

If you want to get really dystopian, in the future the only humans left are the ones tending to the robots. In a parallel universe, robot owners and robotics stock owners are the ones holding the upper hand.

The geeks shall inherit the earth

Robotics is industry’s equivalent of Deep Work. Every single part of a robot is developed at the leading edge, at the top of everyone’s ability; technology, biology, biotechnology, neurology, philosophy, psychology, programming, materials, motors, artificial intelligence. The combination of these into useful and robust machines demands even more of the creators (i.e., you).

If you are wary of being made redundant by automation (and you should), the obvious solution is to be the one controlling the automation (and inheriting the earth).

It’s not “just robots”

There is so much to do in robotics: vision, balance, appearance, movement, safety, reasoning, emotion, interface, power source, touch, control. And each of those need to be craftily integrated with the others, e.g. vision, prediction and balance.

Take just vision as one example. Ideally you’d want to combine radar, ultrasound, stereo vision, texture analysis algorithms, laser, object data bases, blueprints, recent memory, inference algorithms etc. in one single system, in order to rapidly and reliably map the environment in 3D, as well as make forecasts for the coming milliseconds, seconds and possibly minutes to prepare probable movements.

Similar issues are facing research teams within, e.g., balance/movement (motors, artificial muscles, scenario simulation, limb synchronization. machine learning) as well as other important sub-segments of robotics.

At the user end, there really are no limits to where robots and AIs might go: industry, care, household, status, services, shopping, news, education, search & rescue, surgery, research & exploration, sex/porn and on and on. Every single area of life and business will be affected in the coming two (or maybe three) decades. Read more about the steps to AI here, or read, e.g., Kurzweil’s book “How To Create A Mind”.

Simply put, robots is where all technologies converge. It’s a place to perform deep, accelerated, learning and highly value added work. It’s a place where cross-discipline knowledge and deep, associative, and lateral thinking will come at a premium.

My advice is to take your favorite area (hobby), and combine it with some supportive technology and apply those in robotics. I can’t see how you could lose.

If you are an engineer, or psychologist, or designer; if you go into robotics and AI, if you take the “unfair” angle of doing it from the standpoint of fascination, you just can’t lose.

I may have told these guys at Chalmers that aiming for an employment at a big engineering firm, rather than starting your own business, would be just sad…

On the other hand, I also told them they had no business worrying about the coming recession or not earning their livelihood. Very few, if any, of them will even notice the coming recession – except for from tabloid headlines.

Focus, go deep, and go robot

Don’t forget my message to prepare for a fast-changing world by practicing true, off-line, no notifications, focus, as well as perhaps playing Go and meditating, lest constant e-mailing every day will erode your protective myelin layers in the brain completely, making future deep work practically impossible.

Without the ability to perform deep work, even going into robotics won’t save you in the long run. So, leave the 99% behind and commit to stretching that brain of yours regularly.

But now on to something completely different, investing in robotics and AI companies

Investment opportunities

Sorry, there are no free lunches.

Well you didn’t think I would hand out free buy recommendations, did you?

To prepare for the future, practice focus, use your time in deep focus to advance your skills and understanding of how you can contribute to the field of robotics.

And Go East (Japan, China, South Korea)

Or possibly west.

Or stay where you are.

And think about becoming an owner of AI and robotics companies while there is still time. I plan to buy some of the most obvious ones (including Google) in the ongoing market downturn (2016-2017).

Please help spreading this important post

I think this is the most important article I have ever written, and I would like as many students and other interested people as possible to get the chance to read it.

So, please help spreading it as widely as possible through your social networks: Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc., and tell your friends about it IRL too.

P.S.“Subscribe” If you are new here, don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter (weekly updates and retarded recounts) and get my free eBook about my 15-year struggle at the European Hedge Fund Of The Decade (“The Retarded Hedge Fund Manager”).

P.P.S. “Glorious future” No, I’m not dystopian. I actually think we’re headed for a glorious future. After a couple of years of economic and financial rout that is.